Live demonstration: Upper limb prosthetic control using toe gesture sensors and various touch interfaces

Orienting technology, through new techniques, to rehabilitate the disabled and physically challenged and to help elderly is a noble cause, which will improve the quality of life of millions. Prosthetics is one of the important research area where robotic technology serves its best for medical sciences. Conventionally various prosthetic control techniques exists and each has their own advantages and disadvantages. These control techniques ranges from simply implementable, cable-controlled, body-powered prosthetics to technologically challenging Targeted Muscle Reinnervation (TMR) based prosthetics control system. The effectiveness of a upper-limb prosthetic control method for wide-spread application depends on various factors such as cost-effectiveness, ability for easy fabrication, ruggedness, repeatability on daily use, easily installable, usability, ability to bring dexterity and accuracy to perform various gestures/associated activities etc. The current techniques have major drawbacks, namely: with EMG there is a need of relatively complex electronics/sensor electrodes and classification algorithms for implementing large gesture range; EEG suffers from reliability issue and cost; sweating and placement positions of electrodes may interfere with reliable working in case of both EEG and EMG techniques; need of invasive surgery and associated high cost in case of TMR or implanted myo/neural interface etc. We will present demo of a robust, non-invasive, simple, touch-based toe gesture sensor system for upper limb prosthetic control.